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Digital Theatre – Student & Tutor discounts

Digital Theatre offers a diverse range of theatrical productions, filmed in partnership with Britain’s leading theatre companies captured in front of a live theatre audience and distributed as high quality, high definition finished films over the internet to audiences around the world.

Currently there are five productions online: The Almeida’s PARLOUR SONG; English Touring Theatre’s FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD; the Young Vic’s THE CONTAINER and KAFKA’S MONKEY; and the Royal Court’s OVER THERE, all available to purchase, download and keep. They will also shortly be announcing the launch of the next production for their spring season and be releasing new productions at regular intervals, which will be detailed in their newsletters.

www.digitaltheatre.com

1st Global Conference – Performance: Visual Aspects of Performance Practice

Thursday 11th November – Saturday 13th November 2010

Prague, Czech Republic

Call for Papers

Theatre is an inter-disciplinary form of art in itself, drawing ideas and symbolisms from the fields of humanities, making historical references and links, presenting social relations, putting forward great ideas and dilemmas of the mind, highlighting aspects of the human personality and employing all existing art-forms in order to
create a performance as a whole. Performance practice can be examined from the artistic point of view, but also from a cultural, a sociological, a historical, a psychological, a semiological, an anthropological, as well as from an educational perspective. The term “performance practice” refers to the interface within which the
work of the director, actor, movement director and choreographer, scenographer (set and costume designer), musical director, composer, lighting designer and sound designer meet. It also includes all aspects and issues involving the theatrical process, from the initial concept to the final realization. [Read more...]

Children’s Puppet Festival & Master Classes

This summer Horse and Bamboo Theatre are once again opening their doors for a wonderful children’s puppet festival, straddled by two first-class professional training courses.

For the weekend of July 10th and 11th, the Boo in Rossendale, Lancs will be buzzing with puppet shows for the young and young at heart – companies include Stuff and Nonsense (3 little Pigs), PuppetCraft (The Selfish Giant), A Moment in Time (the Bird Book), Horse + Bamboo (Storm in a Teacup). This year we will also be hosting 2 visiting companies from Europe – Mikropodium from Hungary, and a lovely early years show from Italy called Droplets. Thingumajig Theatre’s giant roving “Hippo Chondriac” will also be premiering it’s puppet stories. Tickets for main shows just £5.

Puppet Craft Master Classes

They are also  offering 2 exciting week-long masterclasses for adults:

From July 5-9th John Roberts from PuppetCraft will be teaching a course in carving wooden puppets, using his distinctive technique – a combination of Chinese and Western carving methods. Last year it was a wonderful success, and we are excited that he will be bringing his first class tuition back to the North West. All materials and tools provided. Cost:£325

From July 12th -16th “Taking the Leap” will be a movement masterclass, exploring the puppetry, mask, projection and music techniques used in Horse + Bamboo’s current production Little Leap Forward. Taught by H+B’s associate artists puppeteer Mark Whitaker and Musical Director Loz Kaye, the course will embrace Chinese style hand puppetry, multiple person operated tabletop puppets, full body shadow puppetry and distinctively, performance technique using Horse + Bamboo’s trademark helmet masks. Little Leap Forward will be touring nationally in May and June so you can catch it before taking the course, tour dates are on their website. Cost £250

Full information about the courses, the puppet festival and our touring work is available on their website at www.horseandbamboo.org www.horseandbamboo.org  or call Alison or Peter on 01706 220241 for details.

Luminale 2010 Closes

2010 Luminale

2010 Luminale

The 2010 Luminale comes to a close tonight in Frankfurt, Germany with a light fashion show and a party in the world-renowned Cocoon Club. And straight from the Curator Helmut M. Bien, Curator Luminale come these fantastic images.

Helmet M. Bien tells us:

Every evening ten thousands of visitors went on their own dicovery tour in a town of light. In total about 120,000 visitors became part of the Luminale– Biennial of Lighting Culture. They have experienced a town in which art light was transformed into light art.

Also the fifth Luminale runs from 11th to 16th April in parallel to the Light+Building trade show. Over 150 projects transformed Frankfurt and Offenbach into a light laboratory open to the public.

123 events were concentrated in Frankfurt, predominantly in the city centre in the so-called Wallanlagen medieval wall parks (Frankfurt’s oldest public parks which celebrate their 200th anniversary this year) and in the Palmengarten botanical gardens. 21 projects were realized in nearby Offenbach and 6 more in Darmstadt und Mainz. Additionally a total of 165 events from parties to symposia from guided tours to fashion shows, from exhibition previews to ship tours.

Thematic focus of the 5th Luminale are the themes LED, energy efficiency and the combination of light, sound and other media. For the first time the Frankfurt City Energy Department is offering Climate Tours in the context of Luminale which prove Frankfurt’s ecological pioneer role. Light is an ideal medium for the illumination of both outdoor and indoor spaces, with which stories can be told and atmospheres transformed.

The documentation of the 5th Luminale 2010 – Biennial of Lighting Culture is in preparation. Interested visitors can order it on the website: wwww.luminapolis.com

PQ Architecture Section will be Open Spatial Laboratory

The Architecture Section of the next Prague Quadrennial, with the title NOW/NEXT Performance Space at the Crossroads, aims to provoke architects, theatre-makers, and the public into re-thinking the potential of performance space in the new century by creating a dynamic meeting space at the PQ 2011 for presenting, representing, and discussing new ideas. The Section lead by Commissioner Dorita Hannah will be conceived as a site-specific installation in Prague Crossroads – St. Anne’s Church, housing national exhibits, commissioned media screenings, an open laboratory, as well as other scheduled and spontaneous events, including guest lectures, panels, and presentations.

THEATRE ARCHITECTURE NOW:

THE NATIONAL EXHIBITS will be housed downstairs, installed in and/or on tabletops (750mm wide x 1800mm long x 132mm deep), which allow for the incorporation of image, object, and technology. These tables will stand on either side of a colored flooring strip that will conceal electrical cables. A central, internally lit translucent wall will give ambient light to the lower crypt space.

PERFORMANCE SPACE BETWEEN:

COMMISSIONED VIDEOS, created by those researching performance and space will be projected in a multi-level MEDIA TOWER, which conceals the existing stage that also houses the national exhibits. This tower will have moving images seen from the front, the stage, and the upper level.

THEATRE ARCHITECTURE NEXT:

The upper level will house the OPEN LABORATORY where an ongoing post-graduate workshop will be held with international participants working at computers and studio tables. This will also be a PRESENTATION SPACE for national curators, architects, performers, and guests to present and discuss their work. Call for participants of the workshop will be announced by May 2010.

The Architecture Section is housed in the ancient deconsecrated St. Anne’s Church – Prague Crossroads, which was established by Václav Havel (dissident, playwright, and former president of the Czech Republic) as a space to promote international cultural dialogue. (Photos and ground plans of the Prague Crossroads) In NOW/NEXT we will analyse performance space at the crossroads: between old and new centuries, between the present and the future, between performing and building, between scenography and architecture.

Read more at the PQ Site

Set Building Tutors: Vacancies

The London Film School is looking for Set Building/Construction staff to work as part of our team of visiting tutors to supervise student set building. Construction management experience would be useful. Proficiency using power tools required. Professional set building experience essential.

The teaching includes working closely with the Production Design department, reading working drawings and implementing them with students.

We are also looking for staff with the above background to supervise the striking of sets as a part of our Production schedule based in Covent Garden.

These are hands on teaching roles. Part time work on a termly basis. Occasional weekends. Compliance with LFS Health and Safety.

£130.00 Per Day (9.30am – 5.30pm)

CVs to: info@lfs.org.uk. MARK APPLICATION WITH SUBJECT HEADING “PRODUCTION DESIGN”.

Closing date: Wednesday 28th April 2010

Interviews: Tuesday 4th May 2010

Start date: TBC

TaPRA Scenography Working Group Call for Contributions

The Scenography working group is looking for contributions that will broaden and deepen our mutual understanding of scenographic practices and processes, and the nature of contemporary scenography.
They are looking for provocations, panel discussions and practical workshops, and are open to innovative collaborations and stimulations.
While they understanding the wish / need of some contributors to present formal papers, the group has found that our best sessions focus on informed discussion and practical exploration. They therefore ask that all proposed papers are able to be circulated, at least in draft  form, 4 week prior to the conference.
Here are some themes which they hope to cluster contributions around:
The construction of performed identity through costume and through objects (puppets), the animation of the inanimate object in performance.
Costume as the embodyment of scenographic ideas, as performed object or as clothes for a character? How does the researcher’s view comparer to the practitioner’s or the performers for that matter?
Drawing – The communication and development of ideas – going beyond the limits of written and spoken language. A democratic tool in an otherwise technocratic world? What is the role of drawing in the language of scenographer and scenography.
The relationship between the lived presence and the scenographic image, with reference to site and the performance of everyday life.
The manipulation of performance space through light & sound, the transient and ephemeral and its impact on the concrete
The scenographer’s creative journey – what is it? The nature and use of the scenographer’s personal archive. What trace does the process of making scenographic work leave behind? What is the function of the archive in researching scenographic practice and in creating new Scenography?
Submissions and enquiries to Donatella and Nick

Cardiff Conference September 9th to 11th 2010

at d.barbieri@vam.ac.uk and nick.moran@cssd.ac.uk please.
The initial deadline for submissions is 1st May 2010

Embodying Globalisation: NT Set Design – Esther Armstrong

Theatre designers are often unacknowledged as cultural commentators. To redress this imbalance, Armstrong has used the NT Archive to draw together critics’ reactions to productions with the designers’ intentions.
Having researched designers at the National for her PhD since 2005, Armstrong will look at how the designers working with Nicholas Hytner during his early period as NT Director – Tim Hatley, Christopher Oram and Mark Thompson – produced a distinctly ‘globalised’ aesthetic’ in their designs.
Call 020 7452 3000 or book online to reserve you place for this free lecture. Limited availability.

7 May at 1pm
John Lyon Education Studio, National Theatre Studio, 83-101, The Cut, SE1 8LL, London
Embodying Globalisation: NT Set Design – Esther Armstrong

Design for Circus Forum

The Circus Space opens its doors to those interested in learning more about designing for Circus Arts. The Circus Space is world training centre for circus arts based in the heart of Hoxton, London.

Places are FREE but limited, to reserve a place please email liat@thecircusspace.co.uk
10-1pm, Wednesday 14th April at The Circus Space, Coronet St, N1 6HD
www.thecircusspace.co.uk

Design for Circus

Design for Circus

National Stage Management Awards (UK)

The Stage Management Association (UK) are looking for nominations for their annual awards. If you know (and I’m sure we all do) a plucky stage manager who needs fewer batteries than a Duracell Bunny to keep on going then nominate them today!

British Theatre needs YOU

…to expose those ruthless manipulators, those secretive organisers and
inventors of relentlessly reliable systems turning artistic chaos into
viable shows, those fiendishly clever puppet masters, also known under
the innocuous-sounding alias of ‘stage manager’, to the glare of the
limelight at last.

You may find them hiding in your prompt corner or in their power HQ,
cunningly disguised as a ‘stage management office’ or anywhere in the
murky underworld often referred to simply as ‘backstage’ where they
frequently go almost unnoticed in their bland black uniform.

In fact, these are dangerously brilliant individuals and teams, the true
power behind British theatre and unless YOU drag them screaming from
their hideouts, how will any of us know who to avoid like the plague if
we want our show to fail?

Quite simply, the future of showbusiness is in your hands – name and
shame them NOW for a 2010 National Stage Management Award. Contact the
Stage Management Association urgently on 020-7403 7999 or
admin@stagemanagementassociation.co.uk. You may save shows.

http://www.stagemanagementassociation.co.uk/